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churches rest throughout all Jude'a, and Galilee, and Samaria' (Acts ix. 31). Josephus, in giving a brief description of Palestine, has these remarks on the soil and inhabitants :-The Galileans are inured to war from their infancy, and have been always very numerous; their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of plantations of trees of all sorts: it is all cultivated. The cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages there are, are every where so full of people by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain above 15,000 inhabitants.' In another part ('Life,' § 45), he intimates that there were in Galilee 240 cities and villages. Galilee, of less extent than Pere'a, exceeds it in fruitfulness, for much of the latter is rough and desert, yet in other parts it produces all kinds of fruits, and its plains are planted with trees of all sorts, while the olive, the palm, and the vine, are chiefly cultivated there; it is also sufficiently well watered with torrents which issue out of the mountains, and with springs that never fail to run. Samaria is of the same nature with Judea, for both countries are made up of hills and valleys, and are very fruitful. They have abundance of trees, and are full of autumnal fruit, both that which grows wild and that which is the effect of cultivation. They are not naturally watered by many rivers, but derive their chief moisture from rain water: the waters of the rivers which they have are exceedingly sweet. By reason also of their excellent grass, the cattle yield more milk than do those in other places, and, what is the greatest sign of excellence and abundance, they are both very full of people' (Jew. War, iii. 3).

CHAPTER IX.

FERTILITY AND PRODUCTIONS.

That Palestine of old was very fruitful, is manifest from several passages of Scripture (Gen. xxvi. 12; Exodus iii. 8, xiii. 5; Ezek. xx. 6; Ps. xlviii. 2). A more particular description of the country is given in Deut. viii. 7-10: 'Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land; a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil, olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless Jehovah thy God for the good land which He hath given thee.'

Profane writers concur in describing Palestine as very productive. The Roman historian Ta'citus (Hist. v. 6) declares, ‘The soil is fruitful; fruits like our own overflow, and besides them, the balsam and the palm.' Justin (Lib. xxxvi. 2) says that Jericho was 'not less admirable for its sunny clime than for its prolific soil.' Ammianus Marcelli'nus speaks of Palestine as 'abounding in lovely and well-cultivated lands.' Jerome on Ezekiel (xx.) has these words: 'He who has considered the whole country, and the number and pleasantness of the cities and regions from the Rhinocoru'ra (the river of Egypt) to Mount Taurus and the river Euphrates, cannot doubt that the land of Judea is distinguished and more fertile than all lands.' According to 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, there were in the days of David 1,300,000 fighting men; to these must be added women and children. If we take the population at four times the number of fighting men, then Palestine had about 5,000,000 inhabitants.

David's kingdom may have contained rather more than 10,000 square miles; consequently there were on each square mile about 500 souls. This represents a very dense population. In 1841, there were on every square mile in Belgium, 354; in England, 298; in Ireland, 251; in Great Britain, 224 persons. Of these, Belgium, the smallest territory, had the most dense population. Similar in size (11,375 square miles) to David's kingdom, it makes a distant approach to it in population. In David's time, Palestine on the average was peopled as thickly as the WestRiding of Yorkshire, which in 1841 had 448 souls on every square mile. The reason of the dense population of David's kingdom and Belgium is to be found in the natural productiveness of both soils; and though Palestine surpassed Belgium in the thickness of its inhabitants, this may be accounted for by the ease with which human life is supported in the East, and the compression of a rapidly multiplying race like the Hebrews within the limits of a narrow territory, effected by their peculiar religious ideas and institutions.

At present the population of Palestine is small, the inhabited places few, and the produce inconsiderable. Conquest and oppression have rooted out the people and laid the land waste. The total number of souls in all Syria, that is, on an area of about 50,000 square miles, was in 1840 set forth (Bowring's 'Report') as not above 1,500,000, giving thirty inhabitants to each square mile. This scanty population is both the consequence and the cause of the little productiveness of the country at present. Bowring (Report,' 9) observes, 'The agricultural produce of Syria is far less than might be expected from the extensive tracts of fertile lands and the favourable character of the climate. the districts where hands are found to cultivate the fields, production is large and the return for capital is considerable, but the want of population for the purposes of cultivation is most

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deplorable. Regions of the highest fertility remain fallow, and the traveller passes over continuous leagues of the richest soil, which is wholly unproductive to man. Nay, towns surrounded by lands capable of the most successful cultivation, are often compelled to import corn for the daily consumption.' The country, however, might, under favourable circumstances, be again as flourishing as it was in ancient times. Both for agriculture and manufactures, Syria has great capabilities. Were fiscal exactions checked and regulated-could labour pursue its peaceful vocations-were the aptitudes which the country and its inhabitants present for the development of industry called into play, the whole face of the land would soon be changed' (Bowring's Report on Syria,' p. 29). Even as things are, parts of Western Palestine are no less productive than beautiful. We may give an instance or two. Of the plain of Shechem (Wady Sahl), between Ebal and Gerizim, and its continuance on to Sebaste (Samaria), Olin, in his 'Travels' (ii. 350, seq.), thus speaks: No contrast could be more perfect or delightful than that which unexpectedly met our eyes (at the end of April) in passing from the dreary ruins and heights of Mount Gerizim into this charming valley. Upon turning an angle in the steep gorge, we found ourselves, as if by enchantment, in the midst of fruitful gardens, filled with vegetables, flowers, and fruit trees, and all in the highest perfection of luxuriance and beauty. Olives, vines, acacias, pomegranates, figs, and mulberries, are crowded together in small enclosures, forming an impervious shade as well as impenetrable thickets; and yet the capabilities of the soil seemed not overburdened. Each separate tree and plant thrives to admiration, and seems rather to profit than suffer from the thick dark canopy of branches and foliage which entirely excludes the sun's rays from the tangled huddle of trunks and roots. A beautiful mountain stream winds through the midst of this forest of gardens, in a channel mostly artificial and sometimes covered; but the water often rises into small fountains, and forms several cascades. The mountain district around Nablous (Neapolis, or Shechem) is perhaps the best cultivated portion of Palestine, though very inferior in natural fertility to some of the plains that lie towards the Mediterranean Sea. On passing out of Nablous, we entered at once into the gardens and groves of fruit and shade trees which not only occupy the beautiful ravine already described on its southern side, but literally surround the city, and fill the widening valley which extends from its western gate northwards towards Sebaste. This is, certainly, the most delightful and verdant spot I saw in Palestine; nor do I remember to have seen in any part of the world the evidence of a more exuberant fertility. Besides the mountain stream already noticed, the valley is watered with a multitude of fountains that gush out of the

bases of Gerizim and Ebal, and are conducted off to gardens which owe their fertility chiefly to the abundance of water, rather than to any great skill or industry employed in their cultivation. We kept within the valley for about an hour, which for that distance, and as far as we could see beyond, continued to be well cultivated and to exhibit signs of luxuriant fertility. It is probably the co-operation of the extreme heat of the ever-cloudless atmosphere with copious irrigation, that produces the deep and vivid green so remarkable in the exuberant foliage of this lovely tract. The summit of the next ridge gave us a good view of Sebaste and the Hill of Samaria.' It is an oblong mountain of considerable elevation and very regular in form, seated in the midst of a broad deep valley-the continuation of that of Nablous, which here expands into a breadth of five or six miles. Beyond this valley the mountains rise again on every side. They are terraced to the tops, sown in wheat, and planted with olives and figs, in the midst of which a number of handsome villages appear to great advantage, their white stone cottages contrasting strikingly with the verdure of the trees. The Hill of Samaria itself is cultivated from its base, the terraced sides and summit being covered with ripening wheat and olive-trees. The situation of Samaria was one of the most beautiful. The view from the top of the ridge was strikingly magnificent.' 'Our route to-day was along the eastern side of the great plain Esdraelon. Judging by the eye, its extent towards the west cannot be less than eighteen or twenty miles, while from Jenin (Gine'a) to the mountains around Nazareth, its northern limit is about the same distance. This large area, which has the form of an irregular triangle, will be a good deal increased by adding the broad deep valleys that branch off at various points into the surrounding mountains. This region must be regarded as one of the most interesting in Judea. As an agricultural district, especially adapted to the production of bread-stuffs, it was probably the best in the whole country, and being less exposed to changes from the neglect of cultivation and the action of the elements, it exhibits to the modern traveller the best evidence, perhaps, that he any where obtains of the general accuracy of the Scripture accounts which ascribe to the promised land the attributes of fertility and abundance' (382). Almost every part of Palestine seems very capable of producing bread for its inhabitants, but this (the plain of Esdraelon) is by eminence the corn-country of the Holy Land, and under proper tillage would supply breadstuffs for millions. Palestine, we know, exported corn in the time of Solomon when at the height of its population, and also in the age of Herod, when too it was fully peopled' (432). Miss Martineau (Eastern Life, iii. 194) found Palestine no less productive than lovely: We were always wondering what became of the immense quantity of wheat and barley we saw growing—

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to say nothing of the fruit: and this in a country which we had imagined from the account of travellers to be a spectacle to mankind for desertion and barrenness. In this month of April it was green, fresh and flowery, and we asked one another repeatedly whether every mile of the land was not beautiful. I found it full of charms from end to end.'

PALESTINIAN WHEAT.

Even the less verdant parts of Palestine produced fruits of the highest value to man. The hill country of Judah was the proper region for the olive and the vine. Anciently these hills were covered with orchards of fruit trees and vineyards, and the world probably does not produce finer grapes, figs, and olives, than are annually gathered about Hebron and Bethlehem. 'One acre of the flinty surface of the Mount of Olives, carefully tended in olive-trees, would,' says Olin (ii. 430), ' yield more, through the exchanges of commerce, towards human subsistence, than a much larger tract of the richest Ohio bottoms tilled in corn. Most persons know little of the variety and importance of the uses to which the fruit of the olive is applied in the Eastern nations and in some of the Southern countries of Europe. Large quantities of the berries are used by the inhabitants and exported as food;

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